T-33 Shooting Star

About

The Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star was developed in the late 1940s as a two-seat jet trainer based on the single-seat Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star — the United States' first operational jet fighter, which had entered USAAF service late in WWII. Lockheed's chief engineer Kelly Johnson and team produced the Shooting Star design at extraordinary pace under the wartime Skunk Works program. The two-seat T-33 trainer made its first flight on March 22, 1948, and entered USAF service as the standard advanced jet trainer for a generation of postwar American military pilots.

The T-33 became one of the most successful jet trainers ever built — total production reached approximately 6,557 airframes between 1948 and 1959, in U.S., Canadian, and Japanese license-built form. The type taught fundamental jet flight skills (high-speed handling, instrument flying in jet conditions, and airline-style two-pilot procedures) to generations of Air Force, Navy, Marine, and allied military pilots through the 1950s, 1960s, and beyond. T-33s served as primary jet trainers, target tugs, drone controllers, and chase planes well into the 1990s in some allied air forces.

The unmistakable Shooting Star silhouette — straight wings, single nose intake, slim cigar-shaped fuselage, T-tail — is one of the most-modeled early-jet subjects in modern RC EDF scale flying. The straight-wing layout makes the T-33 a more accessible EDF scale subject than later swept-wing fighters, with handling characteristics closer to a sport jet than to a high-performance fighter.

In the simulator

A friendly entry into the EDF jet category. The T-33's straight-wing layout gives the airframe in our sim more forgiving handling than the swept-wing fighter subjects in this same pack. Use it as the natural step between sport-jet foamies and demanding fighter EDF subjects.